Day 10 - Saturday, May 9, 2009 - Angkor Wat Tomb Raiding

Hope you have your reading glasses ready this one is pretty long, it took me 3 different sessions to finish typing...


I took over 200 photos on this day, you can see them here:



We woke up and met Sall, bought a bunch of water and some snacks and took off for the temples. We stopped and paid or $20 entrance fee and received our photo ID cards to enter each of the temples. We mad intermittent stops at a few of the temples which were completely mind blowing and I snapped a ton of pictures. The exquisitely detailed and enormous works of art and human ingenuity were truly breathtaking. After a few stops we decided to head out to a remote temple 40 minutes off the beaten tourist path. Although still frequented by many people, it's not part of the "must see" attractions. It was a great ride out to the temple, we passed fields, mini road side shops and stilted houses with hammocks underneath.

Our tuk-tuk bumbled into a dusty street with restaurants and shops on both sides, we dismounted our Cambodia chariot and were hit with the usual swarm of children looking to sell any number of bracelets, bamboo jaw harps, dvds, books, soda, water, post cards, fruit, shirts, and pants. All for "one dolla!" All in all throughout the day I ended up with ****TEXT EDITED OUT TEMPORARILY AS TO NOT GIVE AWAY ANYTHING BEFORE MY PACKAGE ARRIVES BACK IN THE U.S.***** All for about $25 with $15 of that being spent on ********.

The wheeling and dealing that comes with buying from all the street vendors, although fun, gets very tiring after a while. The constant pestering from all the kids took a toll.

The long ride to the far temple was worth it as it was the most detailed and complete one that I had seen. It took maybe 45 minutes to walk through it and on the way out, Meg and I got to play some of the instruments that were owned by traditional Cambodian music band. We reassembled, mounted the tuk-tuk and were off to find food. The day before Meg and James went to an air-conditioned restaurant to gain some sanctuary from the relentless heat and they later found out that our tuk-tuk driver couldn't eat for free there. So we went to one of the many roadside places and were greeted by the usual chorus of gorgeous smiling Cambodian waitresses.

We had our meal and took off for a few more temples and then went to the "Main attraction" the Ankor Wat. Which is the largest of all the temples in the entire region and it is surrounded by a massive man made (I believe) moat. It is connected to the outside by a newly restored stone and earth causeway leading up to it. It took me almost 2 hours to meander through the various walkways, paths, open rooms, and corridors. Everything was so minutely detailed, from the massive walls stretching hundreds and hundreds of feet along a walkway to the enormous statues and moats. The sun was setting as we met up at the tuk-tuk and headed back in to Siem Reap and our hotel.

We rested up for a few hours and went to the "night market" where there were dozens of shops. I bought a nice Cambodian silk shirt and another pair of "sailor type" pants and we decided to try this thing called "Dr. Fish." It was a foot massage where hundreds of tiny fish munch away at the dead skin on your feet. It was $3 for 15 minutes. It was pretty awesome, you just dip your feet into a bubbling hot tub type pool and the mini fish just swarm your skin. It is a very peculiar feeling at first, but it becomes very nice after a minute or two. After our experience with the flesh eating fish we were going to watch a special documentary on the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge at 11pm, but we hadn't eaten since lunch so we tried to get some quick food, but a hot dog and fries in Asia seems to take an insanely long amount of time. We received our Cambod-merican cuisine, topped with ketchup, mayo, onion, lettuce, and some other spices and a handful of fries.

The sign outside of the place we ate was one of the most hilarious massacres of the english language I've seen in my entire life. Some of the words printed on the professionally done and printed sign were: "Frech Fried" $2.50 "Ras Pberry" "Meat Loves Pizza" "Stake and French Fried"

We made it back to the movie place, but they had closed up shop, so we sat down and ate our food just outside of the movie area. Following this we went into a discotech for about 2 minutes and then found a "gweilo bar" with a pool table. After 2 games we called it a night, our last night as the "Three Adventurers" whom had travelled through and set foot up 5 different countries in 12 days.